Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 17:37:09 -0400
Subject: M-G: Re: Proyect and the "Trotskyists"!


Bob Malecki wrote:

Proyect at best is and American centered new leftist who in order to give
us a International flavor sometimes mentions struggles in the western
hemisphere mainly Nicaragua and Cuba. Because the American new left is just
that. And isolated little sect who can't even see the other side of the
ocean never mind the rest od the world. Where is Proyect on the discussions
on Europe or Africa or China. Yeah he is strutting around name dropping and
talking about the next cyber seminar which will provide thougt for the New
Left review crowd. So touching. In fact Proyect is so fucking isolated he
did not even know what was going on in his own fucking city with the
squatters and when Jerry informed him he immediately jumped on the wrong
side of the barricades!

Vladimir: It's true that "Proyect," as a political type, embodies the parochialism
of the US middle-class left, who in comparison with the 1960s have lost whatever 
limited progressive role they might have played in American society.  Politically 
parochial means also intellectually barren *but* prolific.  In this respect too, the 
contrast between Proyect's extraordinary ability for compilation and his obvious 
impotency for any sort of creative thinking is rather telling. 

This is not to say that his criticism of party "sectarianism" is totally wrong.
Much of it is certainly true though don't add anything new for understanding of this
problem.  What is false and ideologically complicit with reaction is his rejection
of "vanguardism" as such.  Here is where Proyect's bond with academic left--whose
objective political function is to prevent the formation of a proletarian party
in US--is most obvious.  

Yet this goal may not be accomplished unless at least a small part of US 
intellectual class--who are presently suffer a significant pressure on their economic 
and professional status--resolutely break with the anarchy and decadence of their class
existence, go over to the side of communism, and forge a *direct* link with more
class-conscious elements among American workers.  

And this is no-no with Proyect's and academic leftism.  Their link is with  a very 
different social group.  Their main base is the sizeable chunk of the middle class 
employed in the institutions of the welfare state who have loyally served in defense
of the status quo and who now find themselves "downsized" by "neoliberalism," i.e.
the bourgeoisie's decision to cancel the class-compromise pact of the post-war
era and to demolish its social institutions and the social groups created to serve
them.  

It is this social juncture that gives a peculiar political expression to the traditional 
combination of anti-capitalist sentiments with the fear of the working class which is so 
characteristic of the social psychology of the professional and intellectual segments of 
petty-bourgeoisie.  Today they need to mobilize sections of the working class under the 
banner of struggle against "neoliberalism" while making sure that no independent 
proletarian organization and class consciousness develop out of such mobilization.  They
want to put the pent-up discontent of the workers and the poor at the service of the 
afflicted layers of petty- and middle bourgeoisie, or in other words, at the service
of "democracy." This is the essense of present-day leftism, be it Proyect's academic
proper or other varieties of US middle-class leftism.

The latest developments on mi nicely illustrate this point.  With the stalinists
out, the left can no longer pretend to be in the "center."  They now stand openly as 
just a trivial social-democratic right-to-left swamp. The appearance of the 
Red Critique boys with their ant-pomo *and* anti-Meikins Wood pamphlet hit them 
right in he middle.  With the trotskyists and now the Boys on the list, they
have nothing left to do but pack up.  Where to? Another ivory tower of m2?
The latest rapprochement between Proyect's and Dumaine's cliques shows in
this direction. In fact, this would be the best outcome for mi which I think
still have potential to attract international audience.  But if the swamp 
moves to what Proyect describes as the Monthly Review in-house list they
can cause some real harm to  marxism in US.

The journal has already tilted closer to the warm embraces of academic
marxism and middle-class left in general (see the latest issues).  An in-house
list that generates a quasi-public opinion and feedback can seriously influence
its editorial politics.  If this list is going to be dominated by people like
Proyect, MR's shift to the safety of academic marxism can become irreversible.
The oldest organ of marxist though in US will then render itself irrelevant to
socialist project at the very moment when all the objective conditions for it
are in place.

Vladimir


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